The Wildland Journal

Inshore fishing has been on the list of things to try my hand at going back several years now. Freshwater fishing has been my most persistent hobby for the past 10 years, but each time we visit the beach for family vacation, the urge to broaden my fishing out into saltwater has become a little bit stronger. But it's kind of an exclusive expertise. As I'd sit watching fisherman at the piers and in the surf, it wasn't lost on me that the fish they were pulling in weren't just unfamiliar, they were fish I'd literally never seen before in my life. So a couple years ago after a visit to the gulf coast, I decided to set in motion the plans for a saltwater fishing exploration trip, on a small scale and with people I wasn't worried about making a total fool of myself in front of. Move ahead to 2019, and we'd picked a place (Cedar Key, FL) and a time (first week of October) and a group (my dad and I). I can't recall how Cedar Key became the place. I think I ...

Slowly, a few miles every year, I'm chipping away at my goal to paddle the entire Etowah River. It's 164 miles long, and I'm 66 miles in right now. I suppose you could argue that it's the easier of the miles that've been paddled too, considering some 26 of those are the still, slow waters of Lake Allatoona. Regardless, it's a goal and an enjoyable one to work toward at that. A lot of those miles have been solo, a few with my wife Jeannie, and now that my brother(s) are around more, they're racking up a good bit faster. This latest stretch was 10 miles from Boling Park to Field's Landing . This was the first bit of Etowah I've done upstream from the lake, and for the first 8 miles or so there was a nice current pushing along. It's all woodlands on both sides, and only a couple of houses peek through the trees along the way. Unlike the lower Etowah I'm used to, there were no riverside shacks or private boat launches dotting the banks. I have...

I loved this boat. The Old Town Guide/Discovery 119  is a small frame, single seat canoe built to meet the requirements of a solo paddler. The "Guide" version was made specifically for Dick's Sporting Goods and featured the grey/black camo pattern in the pic above. The "Discovery" is the same boat, with some seat variations, as sold by everyone else. At a glance, it is also very similar to the pricier Pack Canoe , but there are some differences in both materials and design that differentiate these two crafts. First off, the technical specs: Length: 11'9" (Get it? Guide 119 ?) Width at widest point: 32.5" Bow height: 19" Weight: 49 lbs Max load range: 450-500 lbs That 49 lbs weight was what drew me to look hard at the 119 in the first place. Not a big guy, I was getting tired of lugging the 80lb Pelican I owned just prior, well, anywhere really . As anyone who has explored lightweight paddlecraft can tell you, there are light bo...